REVIEW: The Bros. Landreth (CAN) LIVE at Newtown Social Club

Monday 21st March 2016 at Newtown Social Club Sydney Australia

Reviewed By David Barr

Fresh from BluesFest,  The Bros. Landreth played the Newtown Social Club on Monday. They put on a big performance in front of a small crowd. Perhaps Easter Monday evening is not the best timing. The brothers from Winnipeg, Manitoba, have won music awards in their home country and have started to make a mark internationally for their roots and blues music. Listeners to Drive Tuesday may have heard the interview with front man Joey Landreth a couple of weeks ago. His musical influences are his father Wally who stood in for brother Dave, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat, Ry Cooder and the various artists from Wally’s record collection. It gives a good idea of where the band is coming from.
They played a couple of numbers from their debut ‘Let It Lie’ album, including the soulful title track and the uptempo ‘Runaway Train’ . The highlight was the 1920’s gospel made popular by Ry Cooder, Jesus on the Main Line. For an encore they performed Robbie Robertson’s civil war anthem, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’. Brother Joey plays impressive guitar and sounds a bit like Jackson Browne. He has stage presence in a laid back North American way and, is in a word, cool. The band has a new drummer and Ariel Posen is the second guitarist. The keyboard of Alex Campbell was missing and would have made the night absolutely complete, but a four star gig.